


ii. inkblood

by foundCarcosa



Series: Spire-Crossed: A Fanfic/Fanmix Project [2]
Category: Fable (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-09
Updated: 2012-08-09
Packaged: 2017-11-11 19:20:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/481987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundCarcosa/pseuds/foundCarcosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[ accompanying song: "If I Could Change It All" by Queensrÿche ]</p><p>The estranged write their suffering in letters they will never send, in the language they dare not use with each other, ever again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ii. inkblood

**Author's Note:**

> Mm, I don’t think he understands.  
> Never thought it would last forever.   
> One glance back — there’s nothing to say…
> 
> …And nothing really matters, when your heart doesn’t lead the way.

**I.**

_I’m writing to you… why? I don’t know why, not completely. I… I suppose I miss…_

Lucien crumples the paper in a trembling fist, the sharp, raspy sound loud in the echoing silence — but no, no, it wasn’t silent at all, was it. The Spire always thrummed with energy. With power. Power that would soon be his… The drumming sound, Garth called it, even though it didn’t sound much like drumming at all. More like… a heartbeat. Life. That was it. _Life._

He had only been in the bowels of the tattered Spire for a couple of months, and already Garth had defected. It’d rained when he left. The sea had churned discontentedly, tossing the ship that held the mage, heaving it closer to Albion’s shores and farther away from him. Already, Lucien feels the absence.

_You left me, and that is unforgivable. Unforgivable! I am weary of being left. And for what? Some lofty ideal of yours? To the Void with your ideals!_

Sometimes he recalls the warmth of the castle, the way they’d lean on each other in front of the fire, the dancing in the ballroom, the way their bodies slowly drifted towards each other as they slept, like opposing ends of magnets. Sometimes, even the lulling heartbeat of the Spire isn’t enough to drown out the echoing of that gaping hole.

_We weren’t supposed to… I wasn’t supposed to… this isn’t right at all, and I hope you know it. I loved my Helena, I still love my Helena. I do this, all of this, for her! You were just… just…_

When he stands on the dock, hands locked behind his back — they’ve only just developed a slight tremor, but soon they’d shake merrily, even in sleep — and turns his gaze to sunny Albion, he almost feels the thread between them drawing him back. As if the mage who held the other end was tugging upon it. When he turns back to the stairs descending deep into the sea, into the base of the Spire, he feels better. The inky black walls are like a womb — _womb, one letter away from tomb_ — and he grasps greedily at the comfort, like a suckling babe reaching for the teat.

_You’ll come back, I know. And I’ll be waiting. I’ll forgive you, I will. We’ll build this together, you and I. It can be ours. Albion can be ours. Why wouldn’t you want that with me? Why wouldn’t you want that, when you claim to_

**II.**

_love me, and yet you would do this? You know how I feel about the Spire, you know what I Saw when I gazed into the sea. But you couldn’t listen, could you?_

Garth savagely bites the knuckle of his writing hand, the sting bringing him back from the downward spiral. Letter-writing was his purge — he wrote and burned to clear his mind of baggage and his heart of festering wounds. But letter-writing is not working this night. The wound is too fresh, the indignation too new, the pain too real.

It is gratifying to be in this tower on the fringe of civilisation, but the bed is cold and the fire gutters and burns out in the middle of the night and sleep is long in coming if it comes at all. He lies perfectly still in the four-poster with his hands folded on his abdomen, or perhaps with his arms crossed over his forehead, and he waits and waits, but there is no respite for the weary.

So he gets up, and he flings spells at the stolid walls until his chest heaves and his head buzzes angrily with the electric surges, and then he sits heavily at his desk and he writes. He writes to unravel the thread of the tapestry he’s woven with Lucien Fairfax, but the tapestry is woven with his heartsblood, and it hurts simply to put pen to paper, let alone write.

_I know what I am doing is right. But I need you to know that, as well. I have invested too many months in you. Not in your research, but in **you.** Because I saw in you what is also in me, and I thought… I could… But I don’t mean that much to you, do I. You used me for what you needed, and now_

**III.**

_I can’t seem to do this without you. But that is… that is all right. I will do what I can! And the Spire will grow! And the Spire will care for me. Love is fleeting. Power lives on even after death. And I_

**IV.**

_See you dying in my waking-dreams, Lucien. You are the Spire, and the Spire is you. That is how it shall be, and I can do nothing about it. ~~Gan be with… Gan have mercy on…~~_

The lines are viciously struck out, because they are effete and inadequate, relics from his old life in his old land. His hand trembles much like the hands of the letter’s imagined recipient, and for a fleeting moment he is him, frightened and bereft and very, very old.

_Be safe as long as possible. I will try, Lucien. I will try to..._

**V.**

_...save me._


End file.
